Parity is coming to college football and basketball in a big way, and boosters at many powerhouse schools are likely going to be unhappy with the new landscape.
Revenue sharing is going to significantly level the playing field between historically dominant programs and their conference competitors. Since the inception of the NCAA in 1906, schools could offer recruits the same basic incentives – the opportunity to play, an athletic scholarship and a good education. But powerhouse schools had an added recruiting advantage – a realistic chance to play on a championship team. Schools offering this incentive often become dynasties, including UCLA during the John Wooden era (10 national championships) and Alabama during the Nick Saban era (6 national championships). Schools such as Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame and Georgia use their championship pedigrees as arguably the key factor in recruiting top athletes.
But revenue sharing is going to significantly reduce the powerhouse advantage. Under the proposed model, NCAA schools will be allowed to compensate their student athletes up to $ 20.5 million per year. And for most top recruits, the primary factor in choosing a school will ultimately come down to the size of the revenue sharing contract offered … ahead of a school’s championship legacy.
College athletes are already being paid, and NIL collectives are currently providing the bulk of these payments. NIL collectives are private entities and their finances are not publicly reported, but it’s clear there are vast disparities in collective finances. In the Big Ten, NIL collectives associated with Ohio State and Oregon are extremely well-funded, while collectives at a number of other Big Ten schools are clearly not anywhere close. Ohio State football was widely tagged as having “the best team money could buy”, and not by coincidence ended up as 2025 national champions
While there wasn’t parity between NIL collectives in 2024, there will be parity between school revenue sharing payments beginning in 2025. Power conference schools will likely all be paying the maximum allowed of $ 20.5 million this coming year. While NIL collectives will continue to exist, their relative influence will diminish and the financial disparity in team “payrolls” will be significantly reduced beginning this fall.
Revenue sharing is optional, but it will be extremely difficult for a school to recruit and compete in conference without matching what its competitors are paying. And good luck finding a quality coach who would be willing to recruit and field a team with essentially one arm tied behind his back. Bottom line is if you want to compete in a Power 4 conference, you’re will likely be required to max out your revenue sharing at the $ 20.5 million annual cap.
The average Big Ten football team will have around $ 16 million in revenue sharing funds to distribute to its players annually. While this may seem like a lot of money, it’s going to go quickly. Michigan recently landed a 5-star recruit at the reported cost of $ 10 million, or $ 2.5 million per year. Top recruits are looking for $ 1 million or more annually in compensation, so your revenue sharing pool is going to be depleted quickly assembling a talented team. If you’ve fully allocated your revenue sharing funds, top recruits will simply pursue opportunities at other schools.
So even if you’re Ohio State, the new reality is you will likely lose a recruit to Purdue if the Boilermakers are offering more. Recruiting top prospects is going to come down to money in almost all instances … if you’re a top recruit, you’re looking for top recruit money. Historically schools such as Ohio State, Alabama & Georgia could load up their starting line-ups on both sides of the ball with 4 and 5 star players. Those days are most likely gone, a school simply won’t be able to pay for a full line-up of elite players and stay within the revenue sharing cap. Instead, the elite talent pool is going to be more evenly balanced between teams.
Consequently, power conference teams are going to be more competitively balanced, and there will be increased parity like you see more or less in the NFL. As a result, powerhouse football schools that typically aspire to have 12-0, 11-1 or 10-2 seasons better started getting used to seeing a lot of 9-3, 8-4 and 7-5 seasons. Parity already began to arrive in the SEC this past season in which no school lost fewer than two games, and even a few 3 loss teams complained that they should not have been left out of the CFP. Not by coincidence, the SEC and Big Ten commissioners are aggressively proposing that each conference should be awarded four guaranteed bids to the expanded CFP. Besides the obvious issues that this proposal discounts regular season records and stiff arms the ACC & Big-12, the major problem with this concept in the revenue sharing era is that it conveniently ignores the reality that going forward, there will likely be more parity between teams and conferences, and less disparity in “strength of schedule”.
Revenue sharing will also have a major impact on parity in college basketball. Earlier this year the nation’s #1 basketball recruit signed with BYU in exchange for a one-year NIL deal with a $ 5 million guarantee. BYU is not exactly a basketball powerhouse, but the money factor has flipped the recruiting landscape. The days when schools like Duke, Kansas and Kentucky could rely on their championship pedigrees to start a lineup of all 4 and 5 star players are gone. Revenue sharing allocations for most power conference basketball teams will be between $ 3 and $ 4 million … nowhere near enough money to pay for a starting five of all elite players. Upon hearing about the BYU deal, an administrator at a blue-blood program reportedly stated: “Five million for one player? Then he will be playing with four dogs.”
The elite basketball talent pool is going to spread among a greater number of teams just as it will in football. Elite football or basketball players will have a common mindset: if a school says I’m one of their top recruits, then they need to pay me as a top recruit.
Contributions fund a significant part of many athletic budgets and schools are actively courting boosters to help fund the added cost of their upcoming revenue sharing commitments. However, boosters may begin to feel their contributions are going to waste if they are being used to pay teenagers millions of dollars to achieve so-so results on the football field or basketball court. And for boosters at powerhouse schools the disillusionment will likely run deeper … we won national championships without paying athletes, and now we’re being asked to pony up millions to pay for middle of the pack teams?
If boosters become disillusioned, they typically contribute less money which is a big problem for school athletic department finances when costs are also increasing by over $ 20 million per year. While parity may be good for intercollegiate sports in general, for many boosters at powerhouse schools it will be an unwelcome development.
Questions on our data? Contact us at: NIL-NCAA.com
Statistics compiled & edited by Patrick O’Rourke, CPA Washington, DC 